![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Company
Place: New York City, U.S.A.
Last Event: Following Mikhail Drugov around town.
Paul and Wen in one van, followed closely by Vinnie and Klas in the other, drive past Drugov's hotel, making plans by cell phone as they go. The decision is to send in two people to eavesdrop on the Russian – and ideally to enter his room and see what clues can be found there. Vinnie and Paul are chosen for the task. They pack a Beretta 92 and a double-barreled shotgun, respectively, and then they and Klas creep over to the fire escape, which ends well out of reach overhead. Klas exploits his size and strength to boost Paul and Vinnie to where they can reach the iron staircase, after which he sneaks back to wait in his van.
The idea is to enter via the roof, which from street level looks to be home to a little garden, quite unoccupied at this hour. Vinnie and Paul quickly and quietly make their way to the top of the fire escape, which stops short of their goal. Paul gives Vinnie a leg up, and then Vinnie leans over and lends Paul a hand. Before long, both are over the parapet. What looked like a small garden proves to be far more elaborate: sheltered tables, a small bar, and a rooftop pool with a deck, all surrounded by attractive plants in pots . . . an oasis in the city. Drugov must be very well-paid by Georgi to patronize a hotel like this!
After verifying that nobody is cleaning up or having a late drink, the two Agents make their way to the bar, where Vinnie deftly picks a few locks. Before long, both men are dressed in spare aprons, and Paul is bearing a tray laden with a bottle of vodka and several spotless glasses. Then they head downstairs, systematically listening for the sounds of girls partying – and of Russian. This involves avoiding the hotel's staff (who are few and far between at this hour) and some of its interesting clientele (including a pair of expensively dressed drag queens having a slapping match).
On the fifth floor, Vinnie and Paul hear what they were listening for: loud partying, the occasional word in Russian, and the constant giggling of girls. After identifying the correct suite, Vinnie hides down the hall while Paul approaches the door, tray in hand. Paul's line is that he's delivering a complimentary bottle to a good customer – one who's obviously having a party (and whom the Agents saw tipping handsomely at every opportunity earlier in the night). Paul straightens up, puts on his best smile, and knocks.
It isn't long before the door opens and a menacing-looking man – Drugov – appears. The Russian is already quite drunk, so Paul's job is easy, and it isn't long before Drugov is smiling and trying to tip him. Paul exploits the opportunity to gauge just how drunk Drugov is, and to get a good look at the locks on the door. Then he leaves, hastily rejoining Vinnie once he hears the door latch. Vinnie figures that he can deal with the door, but that it would be wise to let the room party reach its inevitable conclusion first. The Agents make their way back up to the roof to wait.
After about an hour, it's time to check on Drugov. By now, the Russian's suite has fallen silent; pressing an ear to the door, Vinnie hears nothing going on. Confident that the party has ended in a booze- and drug-induced crash, he gets to work on the locks. The key lock is trivial, but the security latch proves to be more of a headache; Vinnie has no choice but to force it, albeit slowly and quietly, with steady pressure. This is going to look like a break-in, so Paul and Vinnie agree to take steps to make their call look like a burglary rather than a night visit by secret agents.
As soon as the door is open, Paul slips in. Vinnie remains in the corridor as a lookout. Paul's immediate observation is that the suite is in a shambles – Drugov is going to be paying hefty damages to the hotel! The place is strewn with empty bottles, discarded clothing . . . and unconscious and mostly naked girls. Paul treads lightly to avoid waking anybody up, although that seems unlikely, given all the drug paraphernalia and liquor sitting around.
Paul applies two decades of police experience to search the luxurious suite thoroughly and methodically. He quickly finds a used plane ticket and boarding pass in a trash can; he dumps the rubbish bin to cover his trail, figuring that the mess will blend right in. He also finds a wallet belong to one of the girls (she has a Russian name but New York state ID), and of course lots of drugs. As he's supposed to be a burglar, he takes these things. By the time he's approaching the far end of the suite, Paul has counted three of the four girls sprawled on the furniture.
In the first of the two far bedrooms, Paul spots a sleeping man. In the light from the doorway, it's clear that this is not Drugov but another of Georgi's men. Paul tiptoes into the room and carefully pilfers everything from the table beside the bed: an expensive wristwatch, a cell phone, a handgun, and some papers. Then he slinks out as quietly as he came in.
Peering into the other bedroom, Paul sees Drugov snoring on a bed, a dozing naked girl draped over him. He sneaks in and takes a look around. Drugov doesn't travel light, but his bags are simply too heavy to steal silently, and searching them would be noisy. Paul grabs the contents of the bedside table, which consist mainly of drugs, and then snatches Drugov's leather jacket – its pockets bulging with stuff – from the back of a nearby chair. On doing so, he sees a shoulder rig for a hefty handgun hanging underneath, which he takes as well.
Having pushed his luck quite far, Paul decides to leave. He steals out the way he came in, pausing only to remove wallets and phones belonging to some of the girls from purses tossed carelessly on the floor. Then he rejoins Vinnie in the corridor outside the suite. Vinnie decides to lock the door behind him, figuring that it's just possible that hung-over partiers might not notice the forced latch. While Vinnie works on the lock, Paul texts Klas to pull the van up as close to the fire escape as he can.
On the way out, Vinnie quietly and efficiently picks locks and forces latches on three other doors at random, to leave the impression that thieves visited several suites overnight – not just Drugov's. This doesn't take long, and soon the two Agents are back on the roof. Their exit over the parapet and down the fire escape almost ends in disaster when Vinnie slips, but fortunately, Paul catches him. The two burglars carefully descend to street level, whereupon they rejoin Klas and Wen. Then all four drive off in the vans.
It's approaching dawn when Klas, Paul, Vinnie, and Wen return to the group's hotel across town. Vinnie wakes up Hamid and Jili, hands them the stolen phones, and asks them to get to work at once. Paul, meanwhile, hands off all the documents – tickets, IDs, and random papers – to Anabel and Qoqa for analysis. Then the away team hits the sack while the others pore over the fruits of Paul's burglary.
The documents provide a number of interesting pieces of information. First, the used flight coupon suggests that Drugov arrived in the Big Apple from Paris on the date that Anabel saw displayed on the screen while watching Detective Hanson's security video of Pavel Tartikov at the airport. Next, the wallet from the other sleeping man identifies Drugov's buddy as Alexei Alexeev – another member of Georgi's "Red Army." Finally, the sheaf of papers consists of pamphlets advertising a dude ranch in Wyoming, bookmarked with two tickets for a July 13 flight to Yellowstone Regional Airport in Cody, WY. The tickets bear French names, not Russian ones, and Anabel notices that the pamphlets are all rather out of date.
Down the hall, Jili works on the phones and learns that Drugov and Alexeev called the girls, each other, and a landline in 307 – which is to say, in Wyoming. Between them, the two "Red Army" men buzzed the Wyoming number 14 times! Because the Agents suspect that the Wyoming story may be a ruse to cover the real meeting between Georgi and Toru in Las Vegas, Jili also looks for calls to 702, but finds none. The only "mystery calls" are to local numbers belonging to bars, restaurants, and hotels.
In the morning, the entire crew meets to discuss the latest intelligence over breakfast. Everyone agrees that whatever is going on, even Georgi isn't so paranoid as to leave plane tickets and cell phones that point to Wyoming in the suite of two Russian gangsters on the off chance that Company operatives would arrive in New York, pick two men out of millions, and burgle their hotel room. Something seems to be going on in Wyoming – even if something is going on in Vegas as well. And on reviewing the pamphlets for the dude ranch, Wen notes that the maps and photos therein would be more than good enough for ex-soldiers to use to plan . . . something. Zhang makes a point of methodically recording the numbers and aliases on all the tickets and ID cards, as well as all the phone numbers dialed by the phones, the old-fashioned way: on paper.
The Agents decide to keep the Russians' handguns – you don't run into many S&W Model 1076 pistols, although the powerful 10×25mm ammo might prove a challenge to find. They hold on to the drugs Paul stole, too, on the grounds that dumping them on the street would be irresponsible; besides, such wares are a useful bargaining chip when dealing with lowlifes. The plan is to sell everything else – watches, phones, the leather jacket, and even the airline tickets – on the street. With any luck, this will make Paul's burglary look even more like the work of common criminals.
Vinnie gets the job of moving the stolen goods – but before he leaves, Qoqa insists on "cleaning" everything as well as she can. Then Vinnie hits the streets, easily selling the jewelry, electronics, and clothing. Unsurprisingly, he finds no market for tickets to Wyoming, so he decides to exploit them for their disinformation value: He leaves them where they'll be found by the NYPD in short order! If the Russians somehow claim them, the police will almost certainly blame street criminals.
On returning to his associates at the hotel, Vinnie learns that the plan is to drive to Cody, and is sent right back out again to sell the two vans for something better-suited to hauling 10 people across the United States. Fortunately, this kind of horse-trading is Vinnie's forte. With the trade-in value on the vans and the cash from moving the Russians' gear (especially Alexeev's watch!), he manages to get a Winnebago for cheap. The Agents are rather surprised when Vinnie pulls up in an oversized RV . . .
Still, the Winnebago looks like it should do nicely for the trip. Anabel settles up with the hotel, distracting the man at the counter from the bags of guns being loaded into the RV outside. Then all 10 Agents toss their more conventional baggage – clothing, vodka, Skittles – aboard the vehicle. The last stop in New York City before heading west is a service station, where Vinnie professionally makes sure that the RV's fluid levels and tire pressure are up to the long haul.
Over the next two days, the Agents roll almost nonstop, pulling over only for food and fuel. Vinnie takes the wheel as often as possible, spelled by Hamid when he needs sleep. The others mostly catch up on their rest – at least, as well as they are able in RV accommodations. The Winnebago is surprisingly comfortable for such a large group, though, and it being July, the driving conditions aren't especially treacherous. It's the afternoon of Thursday, July 14 when the Company arrives in Cody, WY.
The first stop is a motel, where the Agents take four double rooms. They use the story that they agreed on during their two-day road trip, which is that they're a group of tourists, mostly European, bent on seeing the rugged parts of America the right way: by road, in a huge RV. This seems to go over fine with the locals. Once everybody has a place to sleep, the next order of business is to work on the tourist act. This is how the Agents come to be eating pie in a Cody diner while Qoqa asks prying questions about where she can buy some souvenir cowboy hats . . .
no subject
no subject
However, most telling is the fact that the Agents haven't been challenged, jumped, or tailed. I prefer to convey successfully keeping a low profile by abridging long time periods into phrasing that amounts to "days pass, and it's boring." The implication is that the Agents are under the radar so deep that they can live ordinary lives when the camera isn't on them.
Granted, there are potential "giveaways" like bags of guns and certain Agents' love for Skittles, vodka, Italian coffee, etc. But as long as they keep making their Holdout and Smuggling rolls, and Qoqa cleans afterward, the world never sees that stuff. It's important to remember that the perspective in my write-ups is that of an "insider" who knows everything the Agents know – not a truly omniscient narrator, and definitely not a casual observer.
no subject
Now alone I should hope they're being subtle, but together, better the rubes think they're tourists of some sort, which is what most folks would expect (especially driving around in a Winnebago :) ).